A federal judge has ruled that two cops who work at a public school in Midland, Texas, can be sued for seizing a 14-year-old from her family's apartment because she was there alone. Despite her pleas, the officers did not let the girl call her parents for hours, nor would they let her pick up the phone when her father called. They also searched the family's home without a warrant.

School Resource Officers Kevin Brunner and Alexandra Weaver do not enjoy blanket qualified immunity, ruled U.S. District Judge David Counts, in a case that began with a mom making painstaking plans for her children's supervision when she had to be out of the country for five days and her husband was deployed overseas.

In 2018, Megan McMurry was a special education teacher at a Midland junior high school, married to Adam McMurry, a soldier in the Mississippi Army National Guard. The family had lived in six countries over the course of 10 years, and her kids were used to independence.